Tài liệu Assignment''''s End pdf

"I've got a place in the contact branch of my organization for your ticular talent, Alcorn," Jaffers said flatly.. Whereand—" "I'll tell you that when you're on my payroll." "It's a tric

About Aycock:

Roger D Aycock (1914-2004) was an American author who wrote der the pseudonym Roger Dee He primarily wrote science fiction.Source: Wikipedia

un-Also available on Feedbooks for Aycock:

• Pet Farm (1954)

• Traders Risk (1958)

• Control Group (1960)

• Clean Break (1953)

• The Anglers of Arz (1953)

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Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction

December 1954 Extensive research did not uncover any evidence thatthe U.S copyright on this publication was renewed

He was just emerging for the hundredth time during the week from thefrightening hallucination that had come to plague him, when KittyMurchinsom came into his office.

"It's almost 15:00, Philip," she said

When she had entered, her face had taken on the placid look thateveryone wore—unwittingly, but inevitably—the instant they came nearAlcorn

Finding Kitty's cool blonde loveliness projected so abruptly against thebleak polar plain of his waking dream, he knew how much more she wasthan either fiancee or secretary alone She was a beacon of reassurance in

a sea of uncertainty

"Thanks, darling," he said, and looked at his watch "I'd have gathered past my appointment and it's an important one."

wool-He stood up Kitty came closer and put both hands on his shoulders

"You've had another of those dreams, haven't you? I wish you'd seea—a doctor about them."

He laughed, and if the sound rang hollow, she seemed not to notice

"That's why I asked you to call me I've made an appointment withone."

She stood on tiptoe to kiss him "I'm glad you're decided You haven't

been yourself at all for a week, Philip, and I couldn't bear a honeymoon

with a preoccupied husband!"

He managed the appropriate leer, though he had never felt less like it.The apprehension that followed his daytime chimera was on him again,

so strongly that what he wanted most to do was to take Kitty's handtightly, like a frightened child, and run headlong until he was beyondreach of whatever it was that threatened him

"Small chance," he said, instead "Any man who'd dream away a eymoon with you is dead already."

hon-She sighed placidly and turned back to the business at hand "Youwon't be late for your 16:00 conference with our Mr O'Donnell and Dir-ector Mulhall of Irradiated Foods, will you? Poor Sean would be lostwithout you."

He felt the usual nagging dissatisfaction with the peculiar talent thathad put him where he was in Consolidated Advertising "He'd probablylose this case without my soothing presence and CA would pay its firstungrounded refund claim in—" he counted back over the time he hadbeen with Consolidated—"four years and eight months."

Kitty said wistfully, "Shall I see you tonight, Philip?"

He frowned, searching for a way to ease the hurt she would feel later,and finding none "That depends on the psychiatrist If he can't help me,

I may fly up to my cabin in the Catskills and wrestle this thing out formyself."

Kitty moved to go, and then turned back "I almost forgot There was acall for you at noon from a secretary of Victor Jaffers' at Carter Interna-tional She seemed to know you'd be out and said that Mr Jaffers wouldcall again at 15:00."

"Victor Jaffers?" Alcorn repeated The name added a further ory depression "I think I know what he wants It's happened before."When Kitty had gone, Alcorn took a restless turn about the room andwas interrupted at once by the gentle buzzing of the radophone unit onhis desk He pressed the receiving stud and found himself facing VictorJaffers' image

premonit-"Don't bother to record this," Jaffers said without preamble "Completearrangements have already been made to prove that I've never spoken toyou in my life."

Jaffers was a small, still-faced man who might have been mistaken for

a senior accountant's clerk—until the chill force of his eyes made itselffelt Alcorn had seen the Carter International head before only in tele-print pictures, had heard and discounted the stories about the man'sstudied ruthlessness But those eyes and the blunt approach made himwonder

"I've got a place in the contact branch of my organization for your ticular talent, Alcorn," Jaffers said flatly "It will pay you five times whatyou earn with Consolidated You understand why I'm taking you on."

par-"I know." The arrogance wearied rather than angered Alcorn par-"I have agift for arranging fair settlements when both principals are present Mr.Jaffers, I've never exploited my gift for personal profit That's a matter ofself-protection as well as ethics—I don't like trouble." He reached for thecanceling stud to end the interview "Others have made the same offerbefore you and there'll be others again But I won't use my abilityunfairly."

Jaffers smiled, unamused "You do go straight to the point, whichsaves argument But you'll work for me, Alcorn Those others made themistake of talking to you personally I know that you can be reached aseasily as any other man if my agents keep more than fifty feet away fromyou." His eyes moved past Alcorn to the window "Look at the windowacross the street."

Alcorn, turning, felt his neck prickle Across the narrow canyon ofstreet, without pretense at concealing himself, a man in gray clothingwatched him from an open office window.

"I've had you under surveillance for days," Jeffers' voice said behindhim "I've located two others of your sort since my statisticians broughttheir existence to my attention, but somehow they slipped through myfingers this week I'm taking no chances on you."

Alcorn whirled back incredulously "You've found others? Whereand—"

"I'll tell you that when you're on my payroll."

"It's a trick," Alcorn said angrily "I searched for years before I settleddown with Consolidated and I didn't find a trace of anybody like myself

I don't believe there are any."

"Most of them covered themselves better." Jaffers added, with cold nality, "I don't haggle, Alcorn You'll work for me or for no one."

fi-"The trouble is," Alcorn said, "that I'm different from other people and

I have to know why I know how I'm different, but if I knewwhy, I'd never

have come to a psychiatrist."

Dr Hagen rattled the data sheet in his hands and blinked behind hispince-nez like a friendly beagle He was a very puzzled man, being ac-customed to analyzing his own reactions as well as those of his patients.Alcorn could see him struggling to account for the sudden serenity thathad come over him the instant Alcorn entered the office—certainly it wasnot the doctor's usual frame of mind, from the first sour look ofhim—and failing

"Different in what way, Mr Alcorn?"

"I soothe people," Alcorn said "There's something about me that spires trust and an eagerness to please Everyone roughly within a radi-

in-us of fifty feet—I've checked the limit a thoin-usand times—immediatelyfeels a sort of euphoria They're as happy as so many children at a picnicand they can't do enough for me or for each other."

Dr Hagen blinked, but not with disbelief

"It affects psychiatrists, too," Alcorn went on "You'd cheerfully waivethe fee for this consultation if I asked it, or lend me fifty credits if I werestrapped The point is that people are never difficult when I'm around,because I was born with the unlikely gift of making them happy Thatgift is the most valuable asset I own, but I've never understood it—and

as long as I don't understand it, there's the chance that it may be a mixed

blessing I think it's backfired on me already in one fashion and possibly

in another."

He shook out a cigarette and the psychiatrist obligingly held a lighter

to it Dr Hagen, Alcorn thought, must normally have been anexceptionally strong-willed man, for he hesitated noticeably before hespun the wheel

"Actually," Alcorn said, "I've begun to worry about my sanity and I'mafraid my gift is responsible For the past week, I've had a recurrent hal-lucination, a sort of waking nightmare that comes just when I least ex-pect it and leaves me completely unstrung It's worse than recurrent—it'sprogressive, and each new seizure leaves me a little closer to somethingthat I'm desperately afraid to face."

The psychiatrist made a judicious tent of his fingers "Obviously youare an intelligent and conscientious man, Mr Alcorn, else you would nothave contented yourself with your comparatively minor job But yourprofession as claims adjustor must impose a considerable strain uponyour nervous organization Add to this that you are a bachelor at the age

of thirty-three and the natural conclusion—"

In spite of his mood, Alcorn laughed "Wrong tack—remember mygift! Besides, I'm engaged to be married next month and I'm quite happywith the prospect This trouble of mine is something entirely different.It's tied in somehow with my talent for soothing and it scares me."

He could have added that Jaffers' hardly veiled threat on his life turbed him as well, but saw no point in wasting time on the one danger

dis-he understood perfectly

"This vision," Alcorn said, "and the sensory sharpness and conviction

of disaster that come with it—it's no ordinary hallucination It's as real as

my peculiar talent and represents a very real danger It's working somesort of change in me that I don't like and I've got to find out what that

change is or I'm done for I feel that."

Obligingly, the psychiatrist said, "Describe your experience."

Talking about it made perspiration stand out on Alcorn's forehead

"First I'm seized with a sudden sense of abnormally sharpened tion, as if I were on the point of becoming aware of a great many thingsbeyond my immediate awareness I can feel the emotions of peopleabout me and I have the conviction that, in another moment, I shall beable to feel their thoughts as well

percep-"Then I seem to be standing alone on a frozen arctic plain, a polarwasteland that should be utterly deserted, but isn't I've no actual sensa-tions of touch or hearing, yet the scene is visually sharp in every detail

"There's a small village of corrugated sheet-metal houses just ahead,the sort that engineers on location might raise, and the streets betweenare packed with snow Machines loaded with metal boxes crawl up anddown those streets, but I've never seen their drivers Until this morning, Inever saw any people at all on the plain."

Dr Hagen rattled his paper and nodded agreeably "Go on What arethese people like?"

"I can't tell you that," Alcorn said, "because their images were not plete There seems to be a sort of relationship between them and my-self—a threatening one—but I can't guess what it may be I can't even tellyou what racial type they belong to, because they have no faces."

com-He crushed out his cigarette and took a deep breath, getting to theworst of it "I have a distinct conviction during each of these seizures thatthe people I see are not ordinary human beings, that they're as differentfrom me as I am from everyone else, though not in the same way It's thedifference that makes me uneasy I can feel the urgency and the resolu-tion in them, as if they were determined to do—or had resigned them-selves to doing—something desperately important And then I knowsomehow that each of them has made some kind of decision recently, adecision that is responsible for his being what he is and where he is, andthat I'll have to make a similar one when the time comes And the worst

of it is that I know no matter which way my choice falls, I'm going to behideously unhappy."

The psychiatrist asked tranquilly, "You can't guess what choice it isthat you must make, or its alternative?"

"I can't And that's the hell of it—not knowing."

The icy chill of the polar plain touched him and with it came a deepercold that had not been a part of the dream At that instant, he might haveidentified its source, but was afraid to

"My fear has some relation to whatever it is these people are about todo," he said "I just realized that But that doesn't help, because I've noidea what it is."

He glanced at his strap watch, and the time made him stand up beforethe little psychiatrist could speak again The hour was 15:57, and he saw

in dismay that his 16:00 appointment with Sean O'Donnell and the diated Foods tycoon would be late

Irra-"I don't expect an immediate opinion," he said "You couldn't reachone as long as I'm here Add up what I've told you, and if it makes anysort of sense you can radophone me tonight at 19:00 If my apartmentdoesn't answer, relay the call to my cabin in the Catskills—I've kept the

location a secret, for privacy's sake, but the number is on alternatelisting."

He paused briefly at the door, touched with an uncharacteristic flash

of sour humor "And telestat your bill to me If I asked for it now, you'dprobably charge nothing."

The mood vanished as soon as he was outside and saw the gray-suitedJaffers operative waiting with stolid patience on the ramp of a depart-ment store across the street

The shock of reminder brought on a giddy recurrence of hishallucination

The polar plain yawned before him The silent machines crept overtheir snow-packed ways, the faceless people stood in frozen groups

He emerged from the seizure, shaken and sweating, to find that theJaffers man had crossed the street and was waiting a safe distance be-hind Alcorn fought down a panic desire to run away blindly only be-cause Kitty would be waiting for him at Consolidated—Kitty, his bul-wark of reassurance

The gray-suited man was a deliberate hundred feet behind him when

he boarded a tube-car

Kitty was not in his office and there was no time to ring for her

Instead, he went through the long accounting room beyond, ing automatically the smiles of a suddenly genial staff and headed forO'Donnell's office

answer-He saw at once that he was too late

The CA manager's door was open and O'Donnell and Mulhall of diated Foods were emerging Both wore street jackets and both men hadthe unmistakable air of euphoric calm that came within seconds ofAlcorn's approach

Irra-O'Donnell gave Alcorn his familiar long-lipped grin, looking, with histhin gentle face and neat brush of ermine-white hair, like an aristocraticIrish saint

"You missed a pleasant meeting," O'Donnell said "I've just signed a fund release to Charlie here, and a pleasure it was."

re-The awareness that they had been calmed before he'd arrived left corn speechless

Al-"Really shouldn't have accepted," Mulhall said sheepishly Mulhallwas a big, solid man, bald and paunchy and, when his normal instinctswere controlled, an argumentative tyrant "Niggling technicality, I say.Shouldn't have taken a refund, but Sean here insisted."

They laughed together, like children sharing a joke.

"The claim was justified," O'Donnell said firmly "Once Charlie's retary explained the case, there was no doubt."

sec-Mulhall grinned at Alcorn "Remarkable girl, Janice Wynn She's ing in Sean's office Wants to meet you, Philip."

wait-They went toward the lift with their arms about each other, sharing anall-too-brief moment of companionship

Alcorn hesitated in front of the closed door of O'Donnell's office

When he entered, Janice Wynn was standing at the window, watchingthe soundless rush of traffic in the street below She was dark, not pretty

in any conventional sense, but charged with a controlled vitality thatmade physical beauty unimportant

Her face was anything but serene, the complex of emotions in hertilted green eyes far removed from the ready placidity he had learned toexpect There was an unmistakable impression of driving urgency—thesame urgency, Alcorn thought, that he had felt in the people of his wak-ing dream

"You're one," he said His face felt stiff "After all these years, I'vefound another one like—"

"Like yourself," she said "But it's I who have found you Did you really

think you were unique, Philip Alcorn?"

He tried to answer and couldn't The meeting he had dreamed of allhis life had come about with precisely the electric suddenness he hadimagined, but he felt none of the elation he had anticipated He felt, in-stead, a sudden panic

For behind Mulhall's secretary, he had a shutter-swift glimpse of thefrozen plain, starkly clear with its huddle of metal buildings and its face-less people clustered on the snow-packed street

Janice Wynn gave him no time to flounder for control "You're thelast," she said "And the most stubborn of the lot You're lucky that wecould find you in the little time we have left."

Alcorn said hoarsely, "I don't know what you mean."

She looked more disappointed than surprised "You've no inkling yet?

I've known most of the truth for days, though I still haven't made thechange Your conditioning must have been too thorough or—"

She caught the shift of Alcorn's glance toward the window and turnedquickly The man in gray was watching them intently from the officeacross the street

"You're under surveillance!" she said sharply "By whom and for howlong?"

He told her of Jaffers' call, and winced at the sudden dismay in herface

"At best you've killed an inoffensive psychiatrist with your problem,"she said "At worst—" She came around O'Donnell's desk toward him,her manner abruptly decisive "We've less time than I hoped Come out

of here, quickly."

In the corridor, she opened her handbag and took out a thick white velope "There's no time now for explanations The clippings will giveyou an idea of what you're up against Lose your spy if you can anddon't go near your apartment I'll be at your cabin tonight at 21:00 You'lllearn the rest then."

en-She pressed a stud at the elevator bank and chose an ascending lift corn realized that there would be a turbo-copter waiting for her on theroof

Al-She faced Philip before entering the cage "You have no chance at allexcept with us Remember that, or you'll regret it for the rest of

your very short life."

Alcorn made no attempt to follow

"… except with us," Janice Wynn had said

Us?

She was like himself, gifted with his own talent She was connectedsomehow with the faceless people of his hallucinations

Who were they, and where were they, and what did they want of him?

He was still groping for the answers when Kitty came toward him Shegave a little cry of dismay when she saw his face

"You look simply awful, Philip! Is it another of your—"

With Kitty's arrival, Alcorn's premonition of disaster returned

So-mething was going to happen to him, was happening to him, and unless

he moved carefully, it could involve Kitty as well He had to keep Kittyout of this, which meant that he must stay clear of her until he was safe

"It's nothing," he said hastily "I'll call you later, Kitty I've another pointment now that can't wait."

ap-She put out a hesitant hand "Philip… "

He wanted desperately to tell her the whole improbable story, to veal his fears and get the reassurance she was able to give him

re-But he couldn't risk involving Kitty in any danger

"It's nothing," he repeated He went down the lift quickly because heknew that if he delayed to comfort her, he would never have the courage

to go at all

His only clear thought, as he shouldered his way into the noon throng outside CA, had been to escape from Kitty and from thetoo-vivid memory of Janice Wynn Now that he must choose a course, hewas brought up short by the fact that, so long as he was tailed by Jaffers'men, there was literally no place for him to go

late-after-He could not go to his apartment because of Jaffers' surveillance late-after-Hehad no intention of meeting Janice Wynn at his Catskill cabin at 21:00

Her obvious knowledge—and, therefore, theirs—of the location ruled

that out as a refuge

He looked about for the inevitable man in gray and found him ing at his careful hundred feet The crowd caught and bore them bothalong like chips in a millrace, keeping the interval constant

follow-Alcorn let himself be carried along, feeling the slow release of tensionthat spread outward from him through the throng The physical pressurewas also eased People slowed their dogged pace and smiled at utterstrangers

He had wondered often how the people affected by his circle of calmaccounted for their sudden change of mood He had dreamed that oneday he might walk in such a crowd and enter another island of serenitylike his own and thus find another human being gifted like himself.Someone with his own needs and longings, who would not melt intoready complaisance when he drew near, but who would speak honestlyand clearly, who would understand how he felt and why

Ironically, when that moment had come in O'Donnell's office, it hadn'tbrought him the fulfillment he had expected It had left, instead, a panicbeyond belief

Why? What was he afraid of?

There was nothing evil or dangerous in his own gift—why should hefear another possessing the same wild talent? Damn it, he thought, whatsort of fate could be so terrible that its foreshadowing alone could throwhim into such an anxious state?

How could he be sure that the faceless people were hostile? If theywere like Janice Wynn, and if Janice were like himself, it might follownaturally that—

The rustle of the envelope in his pocket was like an answer, provingthat his problem, if nothing else, was real

"… for the rest of your very short life," she had said.